Cutler showing his game face

So we heard from the doctor today around noon and first and foremost I must tell you that if anyone was to have the misfortune to experience this they would be lucky to have a doctor such as the one we are blessed with.  Dr Joel Weinthal has been incredible all weekend long and has the ability to make me feel more confident with each meeting.

Now onto the news.  Cutler has been diagnosed with Infantile Acute Mylocytic Leukemia, which is very rare for infants.  According to the doctor there are roughly only 900 cases per year of this particular type of AML and so Cutler continues to prove that he is indeed a unique and special baby.

The nurse has now begun administering the chemotherapy.  Because the objective of chemotherapy is to destroy all white cells in the system in an effort to eliminate the bad ones, the biggest concern right now is infection.  And so he was moved into a new room with a special air filtration in place.  Because of the concern for infection he will be in the hospital for at least a month before maybe getting to get go home for a few days before coming back in and starting round two. 

The doctor estimates that after three rounds we can begin to look at bone marrow transplants.  Many people have brought up the potential of being a donor and we appreciate this very much, but from what I understand so far is that the marrow would more than likely have to come from Mason.  Mason has a 1 in 4 chance of being a match.  If Mason isn’t a match, he is extremely confident that he can find a cord blood match.  But that is further down the road and so more information on that is to come.

As for Cutler, as you can see from the picture above, he is still in good spirits.  Around 4:30 this morning he appeared to have lost the effect of all of the anesthesia and returned to his jovial self and decided to talk and play with me for about an hour before finally falling back asleep.  He is rather swollen, but this is from being sick as well as being pumped full of liquids.  Again, despite all of this he is still very talkative and quick to flash his trademark smile.

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.  More updates to come…

Resting after a long day

I hate to start off the family blog like this, but here goes.  As many of you know by now, Cutler has been hospitalized with Leukemia.  It all started yesterday morning (Friday 9/11 of all dates) at Mason’s four year old check up.  About a week ago we noticed several bruise like bumps on Cutler’s back and then on Thursday noticed they had spread to his scalp and stomach so we figured we would bring him along to Mason’s appointment and get a two for one.  The doctor originally thought they were some form of hemangioma, which she considered was not a big deal, but to be safe sent us immediately to the oncologist.

At the oncologist appointment, he immediately said that it didn’t look like hemangioma to him but wanted to take some blood tests to be safe.  He didn’t think that it was anything life threatening and just recommended that we see a dermatologist next week.  Well about five minutes from home I get a call that we need to come back to discus the blood results.  We arrived back around 3:30 and were immediately admitted into the hospital and the fun for Cutler began.

Fast forward to this morning, Cutler was put under anesthesia for a bone marrow biopsy and a spinal tap to help determine what we were dealing with and the doctor mentioned that over the next day or two he would like to get a central line put in.  Well about 15 minutes after coming out from the biopsy the surgeon happened to be there and ready to put in the central line and so back Cutler went under anesthesia.  Needless to say, it’s been a long day and as you can see from the picture above, Cutler is resting well…until they have to wake him to weigh him any minute now.  🙂

The doctor did come talk to us, but he is waiting for more results to come back.  What he did have to tell us is that from the biopsy he sees that 60% of the marrow is bad cells, so it is definitely leukemia.  The spinal tap did reveal that the bad cells were present in the spinal fluid as well, but he expects to eliminate that issue within a few days of treatment.  The doctor expects to have the final plan of attack in place tomorrow at which time we will learn a lot more.  Until then Cutler is catching up with some blood transfusions and did receive his first bit of chemotherapy as part of the spinal tap procedure.

Mason is doing very well.  Last night he and I had a great time together racing go carts and trashing a pizza buffet at Amazing Jake’s and today he had a blast reaping havoc with the Hobbs’ boys.  He is now having movie night at home with mom, the grandmas, and Aunt Pat.

I would like to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and prayers.  It means a tremendous amount to the team.  We only wish we had enough time to respond individually to each and every one of you.  Please accept this blog as that effort for now.  We recognize that this is going to be a very long fight, but Cutler is very strong and with God on our side we will win this fight!